


Face Up Against the Glass

by tjmystic



Series: Birthday Fics [15]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV), Plunkett and Macleane (1999)
Genre: Crossover, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-02-20
Updated: 2013-08-18
Packaged: 2017-11-29 22:53:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/692484
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tjmystic/pseuds/tjmystic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Belle runs away from home and needs to steal a horse. It just so happens to be William Plunkett’s horse...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Face Up Against the Glass  
Birthday Fic #15

Rating: PG-13 (for language - if I make this into a series, though, you can most certainly be sure that I’ll hike it up to a proper NC-17 *winks*)

victoriagebo: Plunkelle – Belle runs away from home and needs to steal a horse. It just so happens to be William Plunkett’s horse….

 

Men’s boots, leather trousers, and a riding tunic were not proper attire for the daughter of a lord, especially the Maurice, Earl of Winchester. Ladies were meant to wear corsets to keep them from breathing, ballgowns to keep them from climbing, and high-heeled shoes to keep them from running. 

But running was exactly what Lady Elisaveta Belle-France was doing, and, since she was running from her father’s blasted title, she didn’t give a damn about her shamefully masculine outfit.   
Elisaveta bolted down alley after alley, speckling mud on her knees as she plopped on each watery stone. Tears leaked down her face, more from exhaustion than sadness, but she was too busy trying to think of somewhere to go to wipe them away. Her best friend - her only friend - Lady Rebecca Gibson would take her in in a heartbeat, she knew. If it weren’t for the her father was the Lord Chief Justice, she’d be there right now, in fact. But life just wasn’t that easy. 

Elisaveta ran faster.

How could her father just spring this on her? She wasn’t a fool - she knew he was already planning her engagement (probably her wedding, and wedding night, if she were being honest with herself). But she expected there to be an actual engagement, not an auction to the highest bidder. And that’s all her nineteenth birthday ball would be, reading between the lines of the speech Lord Maurice had given her. 

Our monetary situation, Elisa, you must think of it - 

More like, “I’m selling you to alleviate my debts.”

\- will be so much fun, all the other Ladies shall be ripe with jealousy - 

Meaning that he would be perfectly fine with her being someone’s mistress so long as he was well compensated for it.

\- the best way to find a good husband.

A rich husband, he meant. And likely a cruel one - what other kind would willingly purchase a bride just two years past her first bleeding? Her options would be limited to large, brawny men with lusty eyes and tight pants. The thought made her gag. She could finally sympathize from personal experience just how Rebecca felt about Thief Taker General Chance. 

“Lady France!”

Elisaveta gasped, too surprised to quieten herself in time. 

“She’s down there! HURRY!”

She abandoned all thoughts about where she was going - she just ran. The shouts of her father’s guards followed her, loud and deep and demanding. She’d never be able to outrun them, not by a long shot. It was hopeless.

Clomp. Cl-clomp. Clomp…

Elisaveta skidded to a stop, eyes widening as she looked left down the side street. She wasn’t crazy, she wasn’t being overtly hopeful - there was indeed a horse at the end of the alleyway. She lifted her face in ecstatic praise, thanking God with all she had - her luck was finally changing. 

“There, check the inn!”

Thanking the guards’ stupidity, she jumped the courtyard’s short fence, hoping that the horse wouldn’t be spooked by her quick movements and loud feet.

“It’s alright, boy,” she panted, holding her palms up as she neared the brown beast. It whinnied at her, still clomping in place, and put its muzzle in hand. Elisaveta petted it for barely a moment before grabbing its reigns and hefting herself onto its back. 

A sound like metal pots and pans banging together had her jumping in the saddle, unintentionally spurring the horse forward a few feet. 

“Hey, you!” a man with a cockney accent shouted. But it was too late - she’d already dug her heels into the stallion’s flanks, sending it into a dead run down the grassy creek bed. She wasn’t about to be stopped now.

“Macleane, your fucking reigns!” the man shouted, but Elisaveta had already rounded the corner to the western forest path. Only a very skillful rider indeed would be able to catch up with her now, and she allowed herself a smug smile at the knowledge that she was a better horseman than any man she knew. 

Why, then, did she hear more hoof beats rounding the bend behind her? 

Elisaveta chanced a glance over her shoulder, and immediately wished she hadn’t. It wasn’t a poor man’s horse behind her, not like the one between her own thighs - it was the sleek black mare of a royal officer. One of her father’s lackeys. 

She pushed her boots even deeper into the horse’s sides, and it happily pulsed forward. The guard didn’t give up, though, and his horse’s gait was quickly approaching. Maybe she’d miscalculated - there was definitely a rider in this city who could match her own skill. 

The stallion had just crossed the bridge when the man whistled. To her surprise, it slid to a standstill. Every inch of her body shivered with fear, and she considered jumping into the river up ahead. Drowning would be better than a life of eternal beatings from a future husband.

The thought had barely crossed her mind, though, when a heavy body collided into hers, knocking the breath from her lungs as they both thumped to the ground. Her face touched the glassy surface of the water, bright enough from the moonlight that she could see her terrified eyes. But then the man was yanking her over, settling her back on the grass so he could see her face for himself. 

“Christ!” he huffed, eyes round as saucers. ”Yer a woman!” 

“Perceptive,” she answered, though it lacked her usual subtle sarcasm. Instead, she sounded just as she was - small, scared, but very, very relieved that it wasn’t a guard who’d caught her. Judging by his horse, she was looking at a fellow thief. 

The man seemed offended all the same. ”Yeah, well, what were ya doin stealing mah horse?” 

Elisaveta considered lying. It’s what she’d do in any other situation (if only because no one listened to her when she told the truth). But what good would that do her out here? This ruffian was likely to kill her either way. 

“I’m running away from home,” she muttered. ”My father’s auctioning me off to suitors in a week for my birthday. He’s in debt. I’m his most precious bargaining chip.”

She hadn’t thought it possible, but the man’s eyes grew even wider. He pulled himself off of her as if electrocuted, briefly rearranged her shirt so the tears were hidden, and leaned away with squinted lips.

“Who’re you?”

“Lady Elisaveta Belle-France.”

His frustration was back in an instant. ”What kind o’ name is that?” he groused. ”Couldn’t o’ just gone with ‘Elizabeth’? What, too plain for ya?”

She glared. ”Elisaveta was my mother’s name. She died in childbirth.” 

He had the decency to look ashamed, but the tone of his voice didn’t change. ”Well, you’re gonna be ‘Belle’ to me, love.” 

He rubbed a calloused hand over his face, pushing the stringy brown hair out of his eyes in the process. Elisaveta - or Belle, she supposed, if she was to humor her present company - had an odd desire to touch the hair herself, but she blamed the errant thoughts on her neurosis. 

“Don’t most Ladies want to marry some rich wanker in the city and live happy ever after?” he finally muttered. 

“I’m not most girls. And I assure you, sir, that no lord in this city could give me a happy marriage.”

“Sir,” he chuckled. Belle opened her mouth to ask what he wanted her to call him, then, but he went right back to talking. ”Well, maybe you just aren’t lookin’ in the right places. There’s got to be one decent one out there.”

Belle glanced at the man’s mare. ”Like the owner of that horse you stole, I’m sure.”

The offense had returned to his face yet again. ”I didn’t steal ‘er, thanks. She’s mah partner’s. Captain James Macleane, maybe you’ve heard of him.”

She shrugged. ”No, I don’t. But it doesn’t matter. What matters is that I’m sure you’re about to turn me in for a hefty sum from my father.” Her voice was steely, but she wasn’t about to apologize for the rudeness. If anything, it only strengthened her resolve. “Let me tell you, though, that I won’t make it easy for you. You’ll rue the day you tried to force me into this.”

She expected him to laugh, to fling her over his shoulder and ride off with her to the House of Summons. Or maybe he’d push her against the grass and have his way with her first. What she didn’t expect was the sympathy in his eyes, or the pitiful expression lurking behind them. She hadn’t realized before, but they were the most mournful shade of brown she’d ever seen.

“Fuck,” he murmured under his breath. Then, remembering who she was, he amended, “Sorry, miss. It’s just… look, I need you to answer me a question, yeah? And think hard on it, cause it’s real serious.”

Elisaveta nodded slowly. He groaned. ”Alright. Then here it it: how badly do you want to get away?”

She humored him by pretending to think for a solid minute, but the words lay thick on her tongue the whole time. ”Badly enough that I’ll risk anything, sir.”

The darkness in his eyes deepened. ”That’s what I was afraid of.”

Carriage wheels and Sir Maurice’s voice echoed through the trees, distant enough that escaping was still an option for her. Or would’ve been, had the man not grabbed her by the shoulders.

“I’m taking you back to yer father.”

“Get your hands off me you -!”

“Hush!” he reprimanded. ”I’m not going to hurt you.” 

He looked over his shoulder, and, when he spun back around, his eyes, voice, and body language were all hurried. 

“I’m going to help you.” 

Her breath stilled. ”H-how?” she asked, hardly daring to hope. 

“My… my partner and I,” he muttered quickly, helping her clumsily to her feet, “we’re highwaymen. The Gentlemen Highwaymen, actually.”

Elisaveta almost gasped, but she stopped herself. The carriage was getting closer. 

“We’ve got a plan, ya see. We’re saving up to go to the colonies. Not that anybody else knows that - they think we’re just in it for the money. So,if we just happened to invade a certain Lady’s birthday ball, maybe took the party girl as ransom, well, who would be surprised? But that can only happen if the Lady’s there for her party. D’you understand, Belle?”

Her pulse stopped. This man was a complete stranger, he couldn’t honestly be offering… but no; one look in his eyes told her everything she needed to know. He was dead serious. And so was she.

Before she even realized she’d made the decision, Elisaveta had sprung forward and locked onto his lips with her own. It was beyond clumsy, beyond chaste, but it sent a shock through her system nonetheless. It was the only thing she could think of that could accurately express her gratitude. She hoped “gratitude” was all he took from it.

“Thank you,” she told him fervently, burying her head against her chest for the briefest of moments. 

“Lady France!”

She choked. ”I… I’d best go. I’ll be waiting for you at the Gibson’s manor under the clock tower. Midnight. Don’t be late.”

He disentangled himself from her body with a quiet promise, and Elisaveta took that moment to race back to the street. She could keep running, she knew, but she also knew that she had nowhere to go on her own. With this man and his Captain Macleane, though, maybe she’d stand a chance. 

She turned around just once on the way to the carriage, hoping to wave or otherwise convey her thanks before she was swept back into house arrest. What she saw made her heart skip a beat.

He was touching his lips, caressing the spot where she’d touched them. Her cheeks filled with heat. She’d kissed a man, a grown man. And he seemed to like it. She didn’t even know his name.

And she couldn’t bring herself to care.

For the first time since the seamstresses had presented her with the thing, Elisaveta found herself happy about the ridiculous size of the ballgown for her nineteenth birthday. The bigger it was, the more of her necessities she could rig inside the ruffles. 

She smiled - her birthday couldn’t come quickly enough.


	2. Chapter 2

Face Up Against the Glass - Part 2  
Rating: PG-13 because Plunkett is being a very naughty boy ;)

Author’s Note: Haha! Bet you thought I’d abandoned this one, didn’t you? Well, I haven’t :D This probably isn’t half as racy as you’d like it to be, but, if you swing by my Fanfic Masterlist page, you’ll see that the last chapter of this will be very heated indeed *winks* Alright, enough stalling then. Back to the August Ficathon with us!

 

“So let me get this straight,” Macleane repeated for the third time that evening. “You’re going to the ball at Lord Gibson’s tonight?”

Plunkett groaned, but continued scrubbing out his pistol. “Aye.” 

“And I’m supposed to come as a distraction?”

“Haven’t got any other obligations, have ya?” he growled. 

Macleane ignored him. “And I’m to meet you under the clock tower at midnight because you’re kidnapping – kidnapping – Lady Elisaveta Belle-France?” 

“Aye.”

“The richest girl in the county?”

He dropped his eyes, and didn’t answer. He didn’t need the reminder about that one.

“And you’re going dressed like this?”

The words were punctuated by Macleane throwing his only suit – the fucking blue thing they’d bought when they got the house – onto his work table. That was more than enough to ruin what minimal patience he had left. 

Plunkett jumped to his feet, his stool scraping along the floor and his newly cleaned gun pointed straight at his partner’s head. The fucking idjut had enough sense to back away and hold up his hands. 

“Yeah, ‘right?” he said, pressing his thumb against the hammer. “Any complaints?”

“Not particularly,” Macleane muttered. “I’m just… confused.”

Plunkett snorted. “What’s there to be confused about? We’ve been goin’ over this since last bloody week. It’s gonna be a party of the richest slags from here to London, the birthday girl’s worth a hefty sum ‘erself – we’ll be set for the colonies and it’ll only take a few hours.” 

Macleane was still shaking. With a muttered curse under his breath, he pushed back the trigger and set it back on the table, well out of reach and close enough to his partner’s side that he could pick it up whenever he wanted. They both knew that wasn’t going to happen. 

The younger man reddened, but, stupid mule that he was, he didn’t back down. “I mean there’ve been at least three other parties this week, and we haven’t hit any of them. You’ve been putting all your energies into this one.” Macleane’s eyes narrowed, and he took a step closer. “And I’ve seen the letters.” 

The coat almost slipped from his fingers. “What?”

The captain raised his jaw as if he’d actually made a victory. “The letters. Between you and Lady Elisaveta. And if you’re planning what I think you’re planning –”

“Which would be?” Plunkett advanced, his forehead lent forward as a reminder that he didn’t need a gun to shut someone up, and Macleane flinched. He had to give the boy credit, though – he had the balls to stand there of shutting his yap and making a run for it. 

“I think you’re planning on taking her,” he finally mumbled.

He blood ran cold in an instant. The fucking prick standing before him had finally managed to surprise him – it seemed he had some intelligence after all. 

For a moment, he just chewed on his tongue, rubbing the ash off his fingers behind his back. He could deny it. He could tell the boy he was being daft and keep Belle a secret from him. But, much as he loathed to admit it, this daft plan of his would only work with Macleane’s help. He’d tried it out from different angles, tried to figure out a way of doing it on his own, but nothing went. The only option he had was to admit it now and hoped his partner stuck by him.

He shrugged, his breath leaving his lungs, and nodded. “Yeah. An’ what else?”

His partner looked taken aback. Apparently neither of them had figured on him being honest. 

“Well,” he started, “I think you’re bloody stupid for it, that’s what else.”

Plunkett laughed. “Oh, like you haven’t been planning to steal Gibson’s girl for weeks now.” 

“That’s different!” he defended. “At least I know her.”

“A dance and a shag qualify as knowing someone now? Fuck, you know all of England then, don’t you?”

Macleane took another step closer, and Plunkett raised his fists, wishing he hadn’t been so honorable and tossed his gun away. 

“I’m not joking, Plunkett! I won’t risk being hung over this!”

“But you’ll risk being hung over everything else?” 

He slammed his hand on this table. “This is different! You haven’t been fucking obsessed with any of our other marks! Pick some other girl to shag, I know loads!”

Plunkett snatched Macleane’s collar and yanked him close. “She isn’t just a mark, and I’m not after her for her shag” he said, voice low and quivering. “Now, you’ve bothered me bout this for a week, and I’m fucking sick of it. You know what we’re up for, you know the stakes. Just this one more job, an’ we’ll be set. So go take a fucking break and fucking get yerself smartened up, ‘right?” 

Macleane opened his mouth to say something more, but Plunkett left him high and dry and headed for the stairs, releasing his collar hard enough that he almost fell the floor. He couldn’t bring himself to care. He needed time to think. He needed time to make sure that this would work. 

Obsessed, he thought to himself, burning at merely the thought of it. Macleane could think what he wanted – Plunkett knew this girl far better than his partner knew his. Not for long, mind. Just a week. But it was enough. Oh it was more than enough.

Alone in his room, Plunkett locked the door and dug out the wad of papers in his pocket. His wife’s old locket had held them together well, and he smiled faintly as he dropped the metal thing back into the cloth. It took only a moment to smooth them out, often as he’d read them, and an even shorter time to find the first in the stack.

 

I don’t know your name, but I remembered your partner’s. Don’t worry about being caught – I sent this letter through Lady Rebecca Gibson, and she has far more trustworthy handmaidens than I do. Hopefully it finds its way to you.

I just wanted to thank you, again, for taking me away. You don’t know me, or anything about me, but you’ve already treated me better than any other man in my life. I just wanted you to know how much I appreciate you doing this, and that I’m willing to do anything to pay you back. 

\- Belle

 

“Anything to pay you back,” he snorted under his breath. Dangerous words indeed to tell a professional thief. Especially a professional thief who’d been drunk enough to write her back. 

He didn’t even really remember what he’d said to her, which was the worst part. He remembered being insanely happy that she signed her note with the name he gave her, and commenting on that near the beginning of his reply. He also vaguely remembered telling her that he liked her writing, much fancier than his chickenscratch. The rest of his much-too-long blabbering was a blur, dulled by the amount of liquor he’d allowed himself. But he’d signed it “Will”, and confirmed that he’d be waiting for her. 

When she wrote back to him the next day, his name marked in her pretty scrawl on the front, he was as fucking giddy as a schoolboy. 

They’d kept up a steady stream of notes throughout the week after that, one from each of them in the morning, one from each of them at night. Descriptions of their days, mostly, but there were also questions they had about the other’s past. Where had he grown up, where did she want to grow old, did he have a legitimate job, what was her favorite book.

It was stupid, and entirely unnecessary, especially considering they’d have a whole boat-ride to get acquainted with each other if she wanted. But she always sent him one first, and who was he to deny a lady? 

Carefully, he pulled out the last letter in the pack, the one he’d gotten the previous night. Belle had had a fight with her father, the fucker who intended to sell her to whoever gave the best price, and she’d understandably had something of a break down. Told him how one of her “suitors” had the nerve to put his hand up her skirt, and she’d only just managed to kick him away before he did something she couldn’t take back. How her father had locked her in her room because she’d refused the man, who was apparently one of the richest wankers they knew and had arranged to touch her to begin with. How she wanted to scrub herself clean, but didn’t feel like she ever would be. 

Plunkett hadn’t written much to that. Couldn’t, when he was seeing red and desperate to hole her away with him where she wouldn’t be hurt. All he’d said was that he would be at the clock tower not a minute past midnight, and that he’d find out who’d hurt her and make the bastard pay. 

Her return message was nothing more than a scrap of paper, a torn corner out of one of her books. There was lipstick on that one. Damned pink lipstick, bright and smelling of fruit. He’d known in an instant that this was what she had to have been wearing when she kissed him, cause he’d tasted apples all that night. It was maddening, and wrong. 

And he couldn’t get her out of his mind. 

For years, the only things that had occupied his thoughts were his plans of killing Chance and getting to America. All it took was five fucking minutes, though, and suddenly his only plans were of marrying – marrying – this proper lady and begging her for the right to lay in her bed every night. 

No, no, he wasn’t obsessed. Obsession didn’t begin to fucking cover it. He’d fallen head over heels in love with her. And all he ever thought about were her eyes, and her smile, and of proving to her that not all men would touch her like she was meat. That some, that he in particular, would worship her like a goddess.

Anything to pay you back… 

He shivered, and he realized with a low groan that, like every other time he’d read her letters, he was hard. 

Before he’d tackled her from his horse, it’d been years since he’d last jerked himself. But, over the past week, it’d been damned hard not to start again. With every new letter, every bit of further proof that he hadn’t imagined her into existence, his fantasies got harder and harder to push away. Push them away he did, though – he was a bastard himself, but he wasn’t one of the fucks she’d been put up to auction for. 

The thought brought about images of Belle wrapped up in a pretty bow for him, just waiting to be untied and bared, and that was enough to bring him to his knees on the mattress. The suit he’d been intending to clean fell at his feet. 

Every other night, he’d willed the hard-on away, thinking instead on details he might have missed, fare for the ship, the revenge he had planned for Chance. But tonight, with the reality of her so close, he couldn’t push off the thought of her pretty lips on his, and the taste of apples on his tongue. 

His eyes met the press of her lips on the paper, and he was done. His fingers itched to the stays of his trousers, and he pushed open the fly as he took himself out. 

Just enough to take off the edge before the party. There was no way in hell he’d actually get to touch her like he wanted – the closest he’d get to her were the dreams he had and his own fucking fingers.

He closed his eyes, and closed his hand around his shaft, hoping that, this time, he’d actually be rid of the memory of her lips.


End file.
